Cougar Town' Season 5: Blake McCormick named new showrunner

As
"Cougar Town" prepares to go into production on Season 5, its second season at new home TBS, the wine-soaked sitcom will be under the leadership of a new showrunner.
Deadline reports the
Blake McCormick, who's been a writer-producer with the show since 2010, will be taking the reins. He replaces
Ric Swartzlander, who ran the show in Season 4, its first with TBS.

Prior to McCormick's work on "Cougar Town," he served as a co-producer on FOX's long-running animated comedy "King of the Hill." On top of his promotion, McCormick has also signed a blind script deal with Warner Bros TV through Doozer, "Cougar Town" co-creator
Bill Lawrence's company.

Lawrence left the show after Season 4 to transition into an overall deal of his own with Warner Bros TV, but wound up remaining pretty hands-on throughout Season 4, as he didn't have a show on the air. It's not likely that will continue into Season 5, as Lawrence has three pilots in contention for fall pickups this year: "Undateable" at NBC, "I Suck At Girls" at FOX and "Ground Floor" at TBS.